


one step forward, fall, save

by vtv



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Harry Styles - Freeform, aka sad me, dad!harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtv/pseuds/vtv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>01:57am an ambulance arrives. red and white. red and white.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one step forward, fall, save

**Author's Note:**

> i suck. it's 2:14am and i just wrote this when i need to be up in four hours. but, this made me think and think until it made me very sad. 
> 
> don't bother pointing out errors because it's basically one big error and i'm not gonna edit it ever so what's the point rly???
> 
> thank you  
> -f xx

01:41am when he closes his eyes he sees his daughter. she's all fair and freckled with her mother's eyes (and he could remember the day he had stared into them, all twinkling hazel and mischief as she said 'i do' and marking the dotted lines in their hurried giddiness in a random town's courthouse) and red hair, and sharp lines; pointed nose, chin and cheekbones. she was her mothers child in that respect. but he could see his mouth and the way she spoke, all round, lazy and laid back like sunday mornings and banana milkshakes at the park. and she is so beautiful. she's his beautiful.

when he takes a breath in he can almost smell her, like grass and cakes and spring and paint (her mother was a painter, she painted 'i want a divorce' on their bedroom wall so beautifully once that the shock of it only came with the crossing of her arms, the crease in her brow and the lump in his throat)

he shifts his feel and he feels the chair beneath his bare feet, cold. the chair that he had sat with his daughter and fed breakfast for so many mornings (until matilda took her away in the chevrolet to france to live with her and her new boyfriend (i still set her a bowl until the cereal got soggy and i'd cry and reach for the bottle and sleep to not feel her absence. but you can feel the drop in temperature. it's so sudden it aches))

he swallows and can feel the scratching of the rope on his neck. she used to nuzzle there, when she was younger. still does but she has so little energy now. her fairness is sick, a grey, a sallow. it makes him sad. 

01:42am he feels his heart race. a thump and a skip. reminding him that this is for her. his heart. he thinks it's fitting, really, because it hasn't been his since he first held her in his arms, all bloody and crying and perfect. his baby. his daughter. his isa. 

01:57am an ambulance arrives. red and white. red and white. 

02:22am a girl of nine is rushed to a surgical ward, red hair flayed in the pillow, mouth shaping ' _where's daddy_ ' to her hysterical mother.

09:03am a little girl wakes up. she can hear her heart beating on the monitor. it sounds stronger. constant. her mother is smiling, red worn eyes and quivering mouth, and she leans down kisses her chest, light and lingering, and whispers ' _thank you_ ' and the little girl feels like she isn't speaking to her.


End file.
